


Honeysuckle

by mid_nightowl (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Background Relationships, F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7327219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/mid_nightowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Honeysuckle: Bonds of love; Spirit vision; Devotion to a loved one."</p><p>In which Robin remembers who she could have made herself love, and the one she truly fell for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honeysuckle

Robin could have fallen in love with any number of people over the years. There were certainly no shortages of people in the army for her to choose from, after all.

She could have fallen in love with Chrom after they had walked in on each other in the baths; the kind of knowledge and intimacy afforded from such encounters could make it easy to give her heart over, but friends are exactly what they stayed. There were no regrets between them; what could have been was unlikely to happen. Robin carried on, and Chrom married Sumia.

She could have fallen in love with Frederick after he had shown her himself at his most vulnerable, trying to choke down those damn meats ; they stayed just friends, as a mutual agreement on both sides. Taller men weren't really her 'thing', anyway. Robin carried on, and he married Sully.

She could have fallen in love with Vaike or Virion or Stahl, but there was no way she was going to get entangled with a damn pervert, a philanderer couldn’t be trusted in her mind (though Cherche was welcome to him), and though Stahl was fairly cute she never could bring herself to be anything more than his friend. Perhaps it was around this time where she should have looked inside herself and realised what she was really looking for. Sadly, Robin carried on, and they each married someone else.

She could have fallen in love with Lon'qu if she tried harder, she told herself, but pelting someone with figs was not the way, in her mind, that you courted someone. She wanted him to come out of his shell because she was pretty damn certain she saw the flushed looks Olivia would shoot at him, not for any nefarious personal gain. They stayed on cordial terms as she gave Olivia support and advice in her hopes of a relationship.

She could have fallen in love with kellam, maybe, if she had brought herself to, but she was happier being friends. Robin carried on alone and he married one of the young women from his village.

She could have fallen in love with Ricken, but he was too young for her, and it was obvious his heart was with Maribelle when he appeared out of nowhere to save her. Robin carried on, and he was engaged to marry Maribelle when he came of age.

She could have fallen in love with Sumia, too, swapping books and spending lazy days reading together until the sun dipped low into the sky. She very nearly did fall in love with her, feeling her heart skip a beat and her hands tremble at the sight of the woman, but she knew exactly who Sumia loved. Robin kept herself in check, no matter how deeply it cut into her heart, and Sumia married Chrom. The wounds healed over time (seeing Sumia happy with her husband was healing enough, and time smoothed over her scars).

She could have fallen in love with Gaius when she noticed him flirting with her but, like every other male before her, she was content being his friend (and getting too close to a thief that could be bribed with confectionary had warning flares going in the back of her mind). Robin carried on, and he married Tharja.

She could have fallen in love with Tharja if she had wanted to, but all the following around she did made her uneasy. Instead, she stayed in some weird place that was best labelled “uneasy friend”. Robin carried on, and Tharja eventually married.

She could have fallen in love with Gregor, but she wasn’t into older men and, towering a head and a half above her, he did intimidate the 5'4 tactician. Robin carried on, and he married Cordelia.

She could have fallen in love with Libra and his calmness and paintings, but Robin did not want to be responsible for corrupting a holy man. She nearly did fall in love with him though; it was the ‘man’ part of 'holy man’ that kept her away. Robin carried on, and he married Nowi.

She could have fallen in love with Olivia. Gods above, she could have fallen in love with her. Every time the alcohol came out in the shepherds, a few things were guaranteed - one of them being that Robin and Olivia would be drunk, and another being that they would always either fall asleep on each other or start flirting. She watched Olivia concentrate when building the miniature theatre, and she could have fallen in love with her then and there - she very nearly did. She felt the bottom of her heart tugging in the way it did when it was telling her it could love someone, but at the end of the day she saw the way Olivia looked at Lon'qu when she thought nobody was looking. Robin kept herself in check, again, and Olivia married Lon'qu.

She could have fallen in love with Henry, but Robin doubted she could ever love someone whose idea of a brilliant use of his time was to dissect a Risen, or any part of a Risen, though they did kind of reach a point where people might call them friends as they organised books together. Robin carried on, none worse for the wear, and Henry married Lissa.

Oh, but then there was Lucina. Robin had originally known her as Marth, and a boy, but that was the closest she had come to nearly falling in love with someone she took to be male. Then came the night they foiled the assassination of Emmeryn, and she was exposed as a girl; Robin came a lot closer to nearly falling in love with her after seeing how those blue eyes fit on her oval face. Years later she revealed herself as Chrom’s daughter. Robin looked at her more closely and saw her father’s nose and her mother’s cupid-bow lips and Gods above, if this was nearly falling in love then Robin had no more options of saying yes or no. She could only leave herself to hopelessly follow wherever the soft tugging in her heart led her.

She fought side by side with Lucina fairly often, due to Chrom trusting Robin the most to keep his daughter safe. As such, they saw each other fight and learned the best ways to back each other up and keep each other alive. After blasting away a brigand who had managed to slice Lucina’s arm to the bone with his sword and screaming for a healer, after feeling the cold tendrils of dread constrict around her stomach, Robin knew she no longer had the option of backing out. She was nearly in love with this woman and where they went from there would be directed by fate and fate alone.

Obviously having a small heart to heart about it with Olivia was a terrible choice, though, because Lucina then confronted her the next day about being in love with her father, of all people. She was temporarily placated after following Robin around for a few days, but she knew on an instinctal level that Robin had her eyes on a member of the royal family, and that was all she needed to know.

The one thing the princess didn’t tell Robin was that half of the reason she was up in arms about the tactician possibly loving her father was that if Robin loved a man, there would be no room in her heart for the exalt’s daughter from the future. Lucina didn’t even tell it to herself consciously; the more she looked inwardly, the more she inspected her feelings, and the more dreams of herself and the tactician she had, the more she realised it against her own denial.

 

Grima towered above them; the time to carry out the Awakening was impending. Lucina could see the dark descending on them, her breaths feeling foreign and burning in her lungs; she saw Robin’s shaking hand grasping for her blindly out of the corner of her eyes as they turned tail from Grima to scramble back on their horses and abscond to Mount Prism. She briefly grasped and squeezed the tactician’s hand before they reached their horses again, and she knew the time to admit it to both herself and Robin was imminent; at least if one of them died, Lucina would have made her peace.

 

The two girls were not assigned to fight the Risen infiltration at Mount Prism, because they had fought at the dragon’s table and must rest. They stood in the safe spot Robin had worked out, away from any Risen threats, praying for those fighting.

As it dragged on, Robin turned to Lucina with fearful eyes. That expression on the tactician brought ice to her stomach; Robin was usually a confident woman.

“I told you I did not love your father,” she whispered to her in a strangled voice, and Lucina steeled herself. This was the point Robin would admit loving him, and - even worse than the idea of Robin stealing her father away from her mother - the idea that there would be no room in Robin's heart to love her with. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, waiting for the words.

“And I do not. However-" Robin paused a second, as though having to convince herself that she was doing the right thing. "I do love a member of his family.” She reached for Lucina’s shoulder, drawing away as she reconsidered at the last minute, her fingers brushing her sleeve. “I love _you_.”

They had shared a brief first kiss before fighting Grima; they would need the luck, they would need their feelings tangible and on the table to draw strength from during their struggle.  
Somewhere inside herself, Lucina had known that this Robin was different from the one in her own ruinous time; the fact she loved her instead of loathed her was the proof. She knew Robin would sacrifice herself atop Grima - it was the type of woman she was in this timeline - but it didn’t stop her sobbing into Robin's shoulder as she faded away in her arms, the hand stroking Lucina’s hair barely even felt. This was to be her final proof; this Robin was not the same one that killed her original world. This Robin was her Robin, her love, her treasure, and she had sacrificed herself to save the world.

And she did not know what to make of the feelings she had been left with.

 

Lucina and Sumia had been with Lissa and Chrom when they found Robin again. When Robin’s unfocused eyes drifted past the pair in front of her - straight to Lucina - the princess launched herself at her lover, holding her close, ear to Robin’s chest to hear her heartbeat. She needed to hear it. She needed to confirm for herself that the woman she loved was back in her arms, real and tangible, not a dream or a wish. Not transient. Tangible and physical and _here_ , with her.

 

“Welcome home, Robin,” she murmured, straightening up to pull her close, cheek against the top of her head.


End file.
